In the Panhandle

These poems read as though they were written by the love child of the Brothers Grimm and my high school football coach. There's an ogre, a goose-girl, a prince, a woodsman, and bloody knights errant, to be sure, but there's also a voice throughout that urges us to suck it up, shake it off, play with pain. It's still the Middle Ages, folks-angry lovers, drunk drivers who missed the curve, philosophical cattle ranchers abound in a world full of so much danger and beauty that we need a troubadour to wander through it with us, to organize what we see and help us understand. What's that twang, you say? Why, it's Reagan Upshaw over there on the haymow, tuning his lute.

-David Kirby

Out of the alembic of a childhood in the arid landscape of north Texas, and from a mix of pained memories, fairy and folktale twists, wry observations, and a lifetime steeped in art, Reagan Upshaw's In the Panhandle distills a poetry with a Larkin-like astringency: smooth and musical over the tongue, but with the dry tang of truth.

-Maryann Corbett

In the Panhandle is an engaging, intelligent, and wide-ranging book. You'll find poems about early Texas history, fairy tales, small town Vermont, the New York literary scene, modern love, saints, and high school football players. Upshaw has long been recognized for his candid and insightful reviews of artists and books. With In the Panhandle, he shows his worth as an accomplished, versatile poet as well.

-Richard Cole